Writing Workshops

SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 10AM-4PM

In lives too often devoted to safety and convenience, too many of our spirits are withering. Too much of our writing is dying too, friends, the same death and debilitation of convenience and attention-theft that our bodies are. Glossy and clean and neat around the edges – and don’t even get me started on the dehumanizing influence of AI! – when it should be muddy and a little smelly and bleeding from being dragged through the brambles. Just like our bodies after a vigorous trip out and back! It is never too late to pull ourselves back from the brink, then, and that is what this workshop will attempt to do. In the same way we think of rewilding as a change in lifestyle, we will attempt that evolution – or return – on the page.

The workshop will be structured around short readings for discussion, prompts, and a concerted effort to, if not generate new writing, at least perhaps tweak a muscle or two that might influence the direction future writing might take.

Participants in this class will receive a PDF a week before the workshop with a short reading or two and a prompt or two to consider in the days leading up to our time together. Perusing the document in advance isn't mandatory but will be helpful.

COST: $60/$80/$100 please pay wha tyou are able

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2-4PM

Jackson Holte is a musician, writer, and mule packer. In 2025, he won the Wyoming Singer-Songwriter Competition and the Montana Quarterly’s Big Snowy Prize for creative non-fiction. His first solo record, Sky Blues, is cinematic folk music, a loosely autobiographical concept album about  what Marilynne Robinson called "the attentive quiet at the center of Western life" and Tom Edwards called "the hush of the land." The twelve collected songs are alluring, unadorned, patient, spacious, devotional.

River Arts and Books will host Holte on February 7th for a two-hour workshop on intention, process, exercises, and tools for songwriting meant to engage your ear with the music of language. Attendees should bring instrument, notebook, pencil, and a favorite book.

COST: $10/$20/$30 please pay what you are able